The Independent: Christmas Appeal Stories
8th January 2007
From hardship springs hope
Politics is an area most charities constitutionally have to eschew. But this year our Christmas Appeal consciously entered the political arena internationally with two charities who work with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. We did so because this newspaper has long felt that the ordinary people of Gaza and the West Bank are wilfully forgotten by many parties to the Middle East conflict.
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6th January 2007
Bringing clean water to a village stalked by sickness
Even if there wasn't a dirty foam - flecked puddle of waste water at the foot of its trunk, you would know there was something wrong with Jamal Abu Sawarha's olive tree from the tell - tale white patches on the leaves.
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3rd January 2007
The small green shoots of hope sprout among the date groves
To get to Berdale,a tiny village of 2,000 Palestinians sunk in the Jordan valley, you have to drive through miles upon miles of barren hills populated only by stray shepherds and herds of goats.
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28th December 2006
A vital lifeline for patients from the West Bank
Dr Haitham al-Hassan is smoking his tenth cigarette of our meeting and drinking the blackest of black coffee. "We are in a desperate position," he says. "One day we can't do catheterisation because we have run out of tubes. The next day we can't do X-rays because we have run out of film. Some 60 per cent of my budget had disappeared in the last year."
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15th December 2006
The Independent Auction
See how the Independent is put together
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15th December 2006
Free the Women and you Free the whole Country
There are many things you expect to find in the cratered, cramped heart of Gaza City, but a group of proto-Germaine Greers and Betty Friedans would be low on the list.
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11th December 2006
Coping with conflict in the world's biggest prison
It doesn't take an air strike, or a telephoned warning that Israeli bombers are on the way, to terrify the war weary children of Gaza. Heightened surveillance is enough to cause nightmares
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8th December 2006
Crushed the Dreams of a Good Life
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the soaring hopes and crashing disappointments of Gaza in the last 15 months than the experience of the Al Boh brothers. Barakat Ramadan Al Boh, 53, sat and chatted this week outside his home in Beit Hanoun, which still bears the scars of bulldozer damage done by Israeli units which laid waste to the houses opposite during their lethal six-day incursion into the town.
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7th December 2006
Trampled because he could not hear
Jihad Kafarneh finally cracked a smile yesterday. It was only the second time in three weeks, since the siege of Gaza was at its height. The 14 - year - old Palestinian, who was born deaf in Beit Hanoun town, was a silent witness to the Israeli army's pre dawn attack on a neighbour's four - storey last month.
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5th December 2006
A critical quest: to offer hope
Maybe they are just conveniently forgetting other periods in Gaza's turbulent and blood stained history, but most Gazans will tell you that 2006 is the worst year they can remember
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